Post-Modern ArchitectureIntroductions to Heritage Assets

Front coverIsle of Dogs Pumping Station, London Borough of Tower Hamlets; 1986-8, John Outram Associates; listed at Grade II* in 2017.

Summary

Historic England’s Introductions to Heritage Assets (IHAs) are accessible, authoritative, illustrated summaries of what we know about specific types of archaeological site, building, landscape or marine asset. Typically they deal with subjects which lack such a summary. This can either be where the literature is dauntingly voluminous, or alternatively where little has been written. Most often it is the latter, and many IHAs bring understanding of site or building types which are neglected or little understood. Many of these are what might be thought of as ‘new heritage’, that is they date from after the Second World War.

Post-Modernism is a movement and a style prevalent in architecture between about 1975 and 1990. It is characterised by its plurality, engagement with urban context and setting, reference to older architectural traditions and communication through metaphor and symbolism. While influenced by developments in the United States and Europe, Post-Modernism in Britain has distinctive characteristics of its own, including an emphasis on urban context and the use of brick and other traditional building materials. Post-Modernism was applied to many building types and sectors, particularly commercial architecture, cultural and civic buildings and small housing developments.

This guidance note has been written by Geraint Franklin and edited by Deborah Mays.

It is one is of several guidance documents that can be accessed at HistoricEngland.org.uk/listing/selection-criteria/listing-selection/ihas-buildings/

Published by Historic England December 2017. HistoricEngland.org.uk/listing/

Contents

Introduction .........................................1

1 Historical Background .................3

2 Development of Post-Modern Architecture ................................7

2.1 Commercial buildings .................................72.2 Cultural and civic buildings ......................102.3 Educational buildings................................122.4 Housing and houses ..................................14

3 Change and the Future ..............17

4 Further Reading .........................18

4.1 Contact Historic England ..........................19

5 Acknowledgements ...................20

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Introduction

Post-Modernism occurs in philosophy, literature, design and the visual arts, and the term is an old one, used in painting in the 1880s and literature in the 1940s. It represents an important strand of late twentieth-century architecture and cultural heritage. As its name suggests, post-modern architecture can be defined by its relationship to the Modern Movement. It was defined by the American writer Charles Jencks as a ‘double-coded language – one part Modern and one part something else’. The ‘something else’ might include references to architectural history, greater awareness of setting and context, or enjoyment of symbolism, colour or collage techniques. As a formal language, Post-Modernism has affinities with Mannerist characteristics (unexpected exaggeration, distortions of classical scale and proportion) and the spatial devices of Baroque architecture. Post-modern architecture accepts the technology of industrialised society but transcends the machine imagery of Modernism and particularly high-tech architecture.

Like Modernism, Post-Modernism in architecture is an international phenomenon with significant regional variations. In Europe, Post-Modernism was founded upon urban context and typologies, with abstracted references to classicism and the regional vernacular; whereas the American approach was about making a monumental architecture from their country’s architectural traditions, including main street and the suburban strip. The American and European strands converged in Britain, where the movement attracted architects of international standing including James Stirling, and idiosyncratic voices unique to Britain such as John Outram. The revival of the British economy in the 1980s found voice in commercial projects by Terry Farrell and others in London, while practices such as Campbell Zogolovitch Wilkinson Gough (CZWG) devised original yet contextual imagery for housing projects in Docklands and elsewhere.

Post-Modernism is closely associated with the economic boom of the 1980s, and as quickly fell out of favour when a gentle Modernism was revived in the 1990s. In recent years the start of a revival of interest in Post-Modernism became evident in the work of designers such as Fashion Architecture Taste (FAT) and the 2011 exhibition ‘Style and Subversion’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

This Introduction to the Heritage Asset (IHA) sets out the history and characteristics of post-modern architecture, showing how it was applied to different sectors and building types. It supplements Historic England’s Listing Selection Guides which set out the criteria for considering buildings of different types for designation (see Further Reading section).

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Figure 11 Poultry, Bank, City of London; Designed 1986-8, built 1994-8, James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates; listed Grade II* in 2016.

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1 Historical Background

Post-modern architecture originated as a critical reaction to the perceived shortcomings of the Modern Movement. A sense of crisis in Modernism became apparent in the 1960s when the social problems of post-war housing – especially large or system-built estates – attracted widespread criticism. Modernism was condemned as the architecture of big business and of local authorities that had lost touch with their electorate. The American activist Jane Jacobs’s 1961 book Death and Life of Great American Cities provided a trenchant critique of town planning policies of large-scale clearance and the driving of new roads through the city—policies sustained by modernist theories of urbanism. This mood of opposition chimed with a burgeoning conservation movement, who waged well-publicised battles in historic Bristol, Bath, Covent Garden and elsewhere.

Post-modern architecture has its origins in the United States of America in the 1960s. In Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), Robert Venturi advocated an inclusive, rich and ambiguous architecture, gathering such disparate sources as renaissance architecture,

Edwin Lutyens and Louis Kahn into a ‘difficult whole’. In Learning from Las Vegas, which originated as a research studio at UCLA and Yale and was published in 1972, Denise Scott Brown, Venturi and Steven Izenour explored the signs and symbols of the city’s commercial vernacular.

Figure 2Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, United States; 1962-4 by Robert Venturi for his mother.

Figure 3Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown driving down the strip, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1966.

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They devised a two-fold classification: the ‘decorated shed’, a utilitarian structure with an applied façade; and the ‘duck’, a building whose exterior embodies its function or internal order (named after a Long Island farmer’s market in the shape of a giant, walk-in duck). Charles Moore drew upon the irony and graphical style of Pop Art in a series of projects which combined bright colours, ‘supergraphics’, neon and interconnected interiors. In the 1970s Michael Graves turned to a post-modern classicism based upon square proportions, earth or pastel tones and oversized motifs applied as thin layers of cladding.

European Post-Modernism took its cue from the classical city and its building types, as outlined in The Architecture of the City (1966) by the Italian architect Aldo Rossi and the English critic Colin Rowe’s College City (1978). Rossi, Giorgio Grassi and Carlo Aymonino were associated with Neo- Rationalism, a movement which derived a vocabulary of urban building types and forms from the European city. Paolo Portoghesi introduced flowing, baroque spaces which owed much to his study of the work of Francesco Borromini, while the Swiss architect Mario Botta derived a monumental architecture from simple geometric forms, often faced with striped brickwork. After studying in the United States, the Austrian architect Hans Hollein completed several projects in Vienna that combined symbolism with a sensual use of materials such as polished metal and stone.

In 1980 many of the key figures of Post-Modernism collaborated on the first international architecture exhibition of the Venice Biennale. A committee led by Portoghesi invited architects from around the world to contribute facades to a display themed as the Strada Novissima. The works of British architects Jeremy Dixon, Terry Farrell, Michael Gold, Edward Jones and Quinlan Terry featured in a separate exhibition space. In a trilogy of German museum proposals, culminating in the Stuttgart Neue Staatsgalerie, James Stirling and Michael Wilford advanced a post-modern architecture characterised by an interplay of solid and void, classical and modern materials and collage techniques.

Figures 4 (top) and 5 (bottom)Top: In Untitled (1979) Rossi depicted a number of the projects he realised in Italy, including the Gallaratese housing (1970-4), cemetery at San Cataldo (1978-85) and the temporary Teatro del Mondo at Venice (1979).

Bottom: Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany; 1979-83, James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates.

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In Britain, Post-Modernism took root in the 1970s and early 1980s, a period of economic stagnation in which under-employed designers were able to share their ideas through writing and teaching. Coloured presentation drawings were prepared for publication and architects became involved in exhibition design, notably the 1981 Edwin Lutyens exhibition at London’s Hayward Gallery, designed by Piers Gough of CZWG. The architectural debate in 1970s Britain, and especially London, was enlivened by the presence of those born elsewhere, such as Léon Krier, Demetri Porphyrios and Rem Koolhaas, and by the international design culture of schools such as the Architectural Association in London. Charles Jencks, born in the United States and resident since 1965 in the United Kingdom, did more than any other to define and characterise post-modern architecture.

The dissemination of new ideas in the architectural media was facilitated by advances in printing technology and sophisticated colour photography by Martin Charles, Richard Bryant and others. Architectural Design, owned from 1975 to 1990 by Andreas Papadakis, was eclectic and international in its outlook, publishing in-depth monographs as well as regular issues. His Academy Editions published many key Post-Modern texts, including Jencks’s The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. From 1983 Blueprint journal combined architecture with design and the visual arts.

Early examples of post-modern architecture in Britain were realised on relatively modest budgets, partly due to the economic climate. It is no coincidence that some of the most playful and engaging examples of the style were temporary buildings, such as the Clifton Nurseries at Covent Garden of 1980-1 by the Terry Farrell Partnership, or remodelled existing structures, such as Farrell’s TV-am studios in Camden Town (1981-3). Later Post-Modernism became a symbol of the Thatcherite development boom, partly explaining why most post-modern buildings are located in London and the South East of England.

Figure 6The 1981-2 Lutyens Exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, designed by Piers Gough of CZWG.

By the end of the 1980s a backlash against Post-Modernism was apparent. It was condemned by Richard Rogers as ‘the superficial aesthetic of shoddy commercial design … obsessed with money and fashion’, while in 1989 the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects said ‘we simply cannot go to the Millennium Ball wearing the threadbare rags of Post-Modernism’. Ironically, those who felt that the movement had ‘sold out’ to big business echoed earlier criticisms of the Modern Movement. Instead, a more contextual, humanist Modernism was revived in the 1990s. That this reformed Modernism had learned lessons from Post-Modernism is suggested by the axial plan and entrance portico of Evans and Shalev’s Truro Crown Courts (1986-8) and the judicious external ornament of Colin St John Wilson’s British Library (1982-99, Grade I).

What is the lasting legacy of Post-Modernism? Today, post-modern architecture continues to inspire and provoke new generations. After a period out of favour, some contemporary architects have rediscovered Post-Modernism, not as a period style but as a toolbox of design strategies including ornament, iconography, narrative and irony. Charles Jencks has argued that the wider project of Post-Modernism lives on in the digital ornament, ‘iconic’ landmarks and cultural pluralism of contemporary architecture.

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Figure 7TV-am studios, London Borough of Camden; 1981-3, Terry Farrell Partnership, re-clad in 2012-3.

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2 Development of Post-Modern Architecture

Post-Modernism in Britain established distinctive characteristics by drawing upon national movements and traditions such the English Arts and Crafts movement, Edwardian eclecticism and contemporary revivals of Edwin Lutyens and CR Mackintosh. Also influential was the picturesque approach advocated by the Architectural Review and published by Gordon Cullen as Townscape in 1961. The contextual or place making aspect of British Post-Modernism chimed with enhanced protection of historic buildings and areas through the planning system.

Post-Modernism took shape in the 1970s, a time of stylistic divergence and plurality. Due to the hybrid and eclectic nature of Post-Modernism, its boundaries with other architectural styles and movements can be soft or indistinct. In the design of housing, post-modern motifs were combined with references to local buildings and the forms and textures of vernacular architecture. The 1980s work of architects such as Richard MacCormac, Edward Cullinan and Jeremy and Fenella Dixon combined traditional materials with historic references, straddling the boundaries between a romantic Modernism and Post-Modernism. Another strand of late-twentieth century architecture was the revival of the classical tradition. In this case a clear distinction can be made between post-modern architects, who grew out of the Modern Movement, and traditionalists such as Quinlan Terry who early rejected Modernism. The following survey tracks the development of Post-Modernism across different building types and sectors.

2.1 Commercial buildings

The evolution of Post-Modernism in England was often linked to innovations in commercial development. For the generation of designers who had come of age in the 1960s, private enterprise offered the creative latitude and direct contact with the end-user circumscribed by the public sector. Architects were quick to exploit unused but historic buildings, anticipating upcoming areas and changing patterns of use. CZWG were amongst the first to convert redundant inner-city industrial buildings into live/work units, following the American ‘loft living’ trend. Terry Farrell carefully grafted new elements into fine-grained historic sites at Comyn Ching (1983-7) and Tobacco Dock (1985-90).

The deregulation and globalisation of the UK’s financial services sector in the 1980s led to a dramatically increased demand for new types of work space, changes in the financing of developments, and a speculative property boom.

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Figure 8Embankment Place, Charing Cross, City of Westminster; 1987-90, Terry Farrell Partnership.

These changes had the most conspicuous impact on the City of London but also contributed to the growth of a secondary financial centre at Canary Wharf, realised through the London Docklands Development Corporation. High land values led developers to identify lucrative ‘city fringe’ locations, often using left-over sites around transport hubs. American-style ‘air rights’ developments were built on decks raised over rail tracks and termini, such as Embankment Place at London’s Charing Cross Station (Terry Farrell Partnership, 1987-90). The need for large areas of flexible and highly-serviced workplaces led to the ‘groundscraper’, a medium-rise, deep plan format where lifts and vertical services were located on the building’s perimeter, while a central atrium brought natural light into the heart of the building.

Project management techniques were imported from North America to speed up the development

process. In ‘fast track’ construction, project timescales were reduced by overlapping activities – such as design and construction – which had previously been executed in sequence. From the United States, too, came sophisticated prefabrication techniques and ‘design-and-build’ methods where contractors oversaw working drawings and detailing. Another division of labour occurred in speculative developments where the scope of works was often limited to the ‘shell and core’ (that is, structure, cladding and service cores), leaving tenants to fit out the interiors to their own specifications. The resulting disjunction between inside and outside, structure and cladding was analogous to Robert Venturi’s ‘decorated shed’ thesis.

Just as trends in finance and real estate tended to follow North American practice, so too did corporate architecture. Frank Duffy, Britain’s leading authority on office planning, observed

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that ‘the new buildings at Canary Wharf are indistinguishable from the best of those built recently in New York, Chicago or Houston’. Indeed, the 1985 Canary Wharf master plan was designed by the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill for a North American consortium of developers. The post-modern classicism pioneered by Michael Graves, Venturi Scott Brown and Charles Moore provided a pliable and readily-comprehensive architectural language which adapted well to commercial developments, modern construction technology and planning restrictions. Onto tripartite facades – symmetrical, with a base, middle and top – were applied bold, simplified motifs: segmental arches or bow fronts emerging from a central recess, oversized keystones and Egyptianate cornices. A prominent entrance and a grand atrium emphasised the transition from public to private realms. Thin slabs of polished or rusticated granite were combined with plate glass and anodised aluminium

cladding. In sensitive locations, brick or cast stone details provided contextual cues.

Post-Modernism was also chosen for commercial developments outside the city. Widespread car ownership and improvements in transport infrastructure made possible new patterns of work and trade. A combination of imposing symmetry and mature landscapes was favoured for the green field corporate headquarters and conference centres that emerged in the 1960s. Business parks, such as Aztec West outside Bristol, offered landscaped surroundings and new architectural images such as CZWG’s 200-260 Aztec West (1987-8) and John Outram Associates’ 1200 Park Avenue (1984-6).

Figure 9200-260 Aztec West, near Bristol, 1987-8, CZWG.

Outram also designed warehouses, such as McKay Securities near Heathrow Airport of 1974-6, while post-modern motifs adorned a group of starter factories in Pershore, Worcestershire (Igor

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Kolodotschko, c.1980-1). Another transatlantic import was the mall or shopping centre. Brick, pitched roof forms and glass atria were revived at Building Design Partnership’s Ealing Shopping Centre in west London (1979-85), whereas the Gateshead MetroCentre in Tyneside (Ronald Chipchase Limited, 1986-8) referenced the glazed roof lights, galleries and classical trimmings of the nineteenth-century shopping arcade. Ian Pollard made full use of post-modern wit and irony in his Egyptianate Homebase store, Kensington of 1988–90, demolished in 2014, which incorporated relief panels by Richard Kindersley.

2.2 Cultural and civic buildings

Post-Modernism’s sensitivity to architectural context and ability to synthesise high and low culture made it particularly effective for cultural

commissions. An early model was James Stirling and Michael Wilford’s Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany (1979-83) in which a circular courtyard, zig-zag entrance canopy and giant pink handrails guides visitors along an architectural promenade. It is a building which promises entertainment as well as education, suggesting the changing values and priorities faced by art galleries and museums. In the face of reduced public expenditure, different funding models were pursued. Some developments attempted to cross-subsidise cultural and civic functions with commercial components such as lettable offices. Private patronage came to the fore at the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain, Millbank (1982-7 by James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates, funded by Vivian Duffield) and the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London (Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, 1988-91).

Figure 10National Gallery Extension (the Sainsbury Wing), Pall Mall East and Whitcomb Street, City of Westminster, 1988-91, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates.

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Local government reorganisation, in London in 1965 and nationally in 1974, caused many authorities to merge or rationalise their offices, and some built civic centres in a variety of architectural idioms. For Hillingdon Civic Centre (1973-7), Andrew Derbyshire of Robert Matthew, Johnson Marshall and Partners designed cubistic elevations of red brick and tile with arts and crafts details. Epping Forest’s civic offices (Richard Reid, 1985-90) are a taut composition of contrasting volumes set off by a prominent tower that addresses Epping’s High Street.

Rationalisation of the public estate gave rise to a variety of civic and governmental buildings. The headquarters of the Department of Health, Richmond House (Whitfield Associates, 1982-4; Grade II*) commands its Whitehall site with Victorian-inspired polychromy and allusions to

Westminster’s ancient gates. New fire and police stations were also required, the most distinctive of which was Upper Street Fire Station in Islington (Peter J Smith, 1992), a colourful composition of rusticated columns and triangular oriel windows. Infrastructure projects could also be singled out for special architectural treatment, such as John Outram Associates’ storm water pumping station at the Isle of Dogs (1986-8, Grade II*).

Figure 11Richmond House, Whitehall, City of Westminster; 1982-4, Whitfield Associates; listed Grade II* in 2015.

Post-modern places of worship are uncommon. Where new buildings were required by minority faiths or to replace fire-damaged buildings they were often realised in simplified versions of traditional styles. Francis Roberts drew upon the Arts and Crafts tradition for St Mary Magdalen, Penwortham, Preston, built in 1987-8; while Church of Christ the Cornerstone for the new town of Milton Keynes (Iain Smith, 1990-2) is

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in a stripped classical idiom. European Neo-Rationalism is represented by St Paul’s Church in Haringey, north London (Peter Inskip and Peter Jenkins, 1989-93), a powerful reduction of the temple form to its geometric essence.

2.3 Educational buildings

The flood of new post-war schools dried up to a trickle in the 1980s, due to falling birth rates and cuts in public expenditure. Most new schools were located in areas of population growth in the south east of England. Buckinghamshire’s architects designed brick schools with bold geometries such as Summerfield Primary School, Milton Keynes (1984-5) where John Stewart incorporated playful references to the Philadelphia house Robert Venturi designed for his mother and

Stirling and Gowan’s Leicester Engineering Building. Hampshire under county architect (Sir) Colin Stansfield Smith designed human learning environments with sheltering roofs, patterned brickwork and domestic-scaled interiors.

Post-modern additions were completed at a small number of independent schools. Birkin Haward’s library block of 1978-82 at Ipswich School combines circular windows and striped brickwork with jettied upper storeys. CZWG’s 1986-8 Computer Design Technology building at Bryanston School, Dorset (now the Gough Building) makes witty reference to its function with screw columns. The curved end walls are decorated with red brick and ashlar quoins which nod towards Bryanston’s original buildings, by R Norman Shaw.

Figure 12Craft Design and Technology Building at Bryanston School, Dorset; 1986-8, CZWG.

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Figure 13Judge Business School, Cambridge; 1993-5, John Outram Associates.

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New university buildings of the 1980s were largely confined to Oxford and Cambridge. Joanna van Heyningen’s rare books library for Newnham College, Cambridge (van Heyningen and Haward, 1981-2) resonated with the College’s Queen Anne buildings by Basil Champneys, while its powerful yet compact presence drew praise from James Stirling. At the Judge Business School in Cambridge (1993-5), John Outram Associates remodelled the nineteenth century Old Addenbrooke’s Hospital, to which new buildings at the rear are linked by a spectacular atrium with a decorated ceiling and snaking staircases. At Oxford projects including Worcester College (1980-3, funded by the Sainsbury family), the Bowra Building at Wadham College (1989-92) and the Garden Quad at St John’s College (1990-3), MacCormac, Jamieson and Pritchard (MJP) evolved a romantic and historically-informed Modernism based upon semi-enclosed courts, organic materials and rich landscaping.

MJP’s Ruskin Library for Lancaster University (1992-7) was based on an elliptical plan entered on the long axis through an opening in the banded, pre-cast concrete walls. In the work of architect-academic Alan Short, low-energy strategies justify exuberant forms of decorated brickwork and cowled ventilation stacks. His Queen’s Building for Leicester De Montfort University (Short Ford and Associates, 1991-2) is an example of the wave of new additions commissioned by former polytechnics on attaining university status in 1992.

2.4 Housing and houses

1970s cuts in local authority expenditure kerbed the mass provision of public housing. Where urban authorities such as the London Boroughs of Camden, Lambeth and Islington continued to build, they generally opted for low-rise models, with individual dwellings clearly enunciated. Post-modern quotations, picturesque massing and vernacular detailing helped to establish a break with the discredited models of 1960s municipal housing. Housing Associations grew rapidly in the 1970s with support from the Housing Corporation

under the 1974 Housing Act and from local authorities such as the Greater London Council. The associations varied in their make-up from young entrepreneurs to traditional charities, with the Mercers’ Company providing sheltered housing at Mercers’ House in Islington (John Melvin and Partners, 1991-2).

Figure 14St Mark’s Road Housing, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; 1977-9, Jeremy and Fenella Dixon.

St Mark’s Road, Kensington (Jeremy and Fenella Dixon, 1977-9) established a model for new rented housing based upon terraces of houses over flats, paired to create broad gables and with prominent steps and gate piers in the London tradition. The post-modern detailing, including Dutch crow-step gables, rationalist square grids and contextual

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details was widely emulated in the design of public and private housing alike. The Dixons’ subsequent housing at Lanark Road (1981–3) for Westminster City Council was prompted by paired early-Victorian villas with stuccoed window surrounds, a model followed by Colquhoun and Miller at their Shrubland Road and Albion Drive housing (1984) for Camden Council.

The demand for houses and flats for city office workers was met by the private sector. In London, the greatest expansion accompanied the regeneration of the Docklands, with incentives and infrastructure provided by the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC).

At Compass Point on the Isle of Dogs (Jeremy and Fenella Dixon, 1984-7) and Finland Quay West Dock (Richard Reid, 1987-9) the gabled terrace form was enlarged to match the scale of the retained docks, while MacCormac Jamieson Prichard and Wright made reference to the quayside vernacular of loading bays, crane cabins and gantries at their Shadwell Basin housing (1986-8). CZWG’s housing, including China Wharf (1986-8) and The Circle (1987-9) combined novel forms with an evocation of urban character. They pioneered new forms of speculative development, such as the concept of buying ‘off-plan’ (before construction is completed).

Figure 15Housing at Shadwell Basin, London Borough of Tower Hamlets; 1986-8, MacCormac Jamieson Prichard and Wright

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The design of private houses combines freedom of architectural expression with a focus on the aspirations of the owner-client. The Thematic House in Holland Park (1979-85), a three-way collaboration between Charles Jencks, Maggie Keswick and Terry Farrell, could be considered a built manifesto of Post-Modernism. Like John Soane’s house, its interior is an intricate sequence of inter-linked spaces, enriched with iconography. At James Gowan’s 1980-2 Greenbank House for Chaim Schreiber a straightforward programme

is expressed in a balanced composition of geometrical volumes. John Outram’s New House (1982-6 and later) introduces new decorative techniques in concrete, including ‘blitzcrete’, incorporating crushed brick, and ‘doodlecrete’, inlayed patterns of coloured concrete. The renewed attraction of city-centre living is exemplified by CZWG’s Janet Street-Porter house in Clerkenwell, north London (1986-8), an idiosyncratic yet affectionate portrait of its client.

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3 Change and the Future

In Britain, Post-Modernism was a relatively short-lived movement, prevalent for little more than a decade, and it never dominated architecture as did Modernism. As a consequence, surviving examples of architectural significance are relatively rare. The idiom was mostly seen in the commercial sphere, including offices, retail buildings and warehousing. Commercial buildings have proved relatively vulnerable to pressures of urban renewal and redevelopment, yet many possess the internal flexibility to permit new configurations and uses without harming any architectural interest. Large civic, cultural or education complexes have the scope for heritage partnership agreements which clearly define a range of works that can be undertaken without individual applications for listed building consent.

Recent losses have included Terry Farrell’s building for TV-am (altered in 2012-3), Marco Polo House and Kensington’s Homebase (both by Ian Pollard and demolished in 2014), and John Outram’s Harp Heating, Swanley, demolished in 2016. Proposed schemes of alteration have prompted recent listings of post-modern buildings, including 1 Poultry (Stirling and Wilford, 1994-8; Grade II*) and Comyn Ching (Terry Farrell Partnership; Grade II). Now that our late-twentieth century architectural heritage is becoming eligible for listing, Historic England is assessing the most significant examples for possible inclusion on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE). The bar is set high for buildings of the recent past: particularly careful selection is required for post-war buildings, while buildings of less than 30 years of age are normally listed only if they are of outstanding quality and under threat.

Figure 16Homebase store, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; 1988-90, Ian Pollard, demolished 2014.

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4 Further Reading

Post-Modernism was underpinned by a rich body of architectural theory, including Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966, second edition 1977); Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown and Steven Izenour, 1972); Aldo Rossi’s Architettura della Città (1966, English edition: The Architecture of the City, 1982) and Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter’s Collage City (1978). The literature of post-modern architecture has been dominated by the figure of Charles Jencks, combining the roles of critic and protagonist in such publications as The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977 with several revised editions) and The Story of Post-Modernism: Five Decades of the Ironic, Iconic and Critical in Architecture (2011). Jencks guest-edited several Architectural Design monographs including Post-Modern Classicism (1980) and Post-Modern Triumphs in London (1991). Alternative perspectives are offered by Paolo Portoghesi (After Modern Architecture, 1982); Heinrich Klotz (1984, English edition The History of Postmodern Architecture, 1988); Robert AM Stern’s Modern Classicism (1988) and Diane Ghirardo’s Architecture After Modernism (1996).

Retrospective surveys include Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt’s Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970-90 (2011, accompanying the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition of the same name); Terry Farrell and Adam Nathaniel Furman’s Revisiting Postmodernism (2017); and

Geraint Franklin and Elain Harwood’s Post-Modern Buildings in Britain (2017). Postmodern Design Complete (Judith Gura, 2017) takes a broader view of Post-Modernism across design and the visual arts, while ‘Radical Post-Modernism’ (Architectural Design, Sept/Oct 2011) examines its contemporary legacy. The seminal 1980 exhibition ‘The Presence of the Past’ is the subject of Léa-Catherine Szacka’s Exhibiting the Postmodern: the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale (2017). Individual projects are documented in architectural journals, studies of individual architects, the updated editions of the Pevsner Architectural Guides series published by Yale University Press, especially those covering London. On-line sources should always be used with caution but can offer unique insights, such as the website of John Outram Associates.

Historic England’s Listing Selection Guides give detailed thematic guidance about what may be eligible for listing. Relevant titles, all published in 2011, include Commerce and Exchange Buildings; Culture and Entertainment; Domestic 4: the Modern House and Housing; and Education Buildings. Of relevance to post-modern commercial architecture is Historic England’s Introduction to Heritage Assets (IHA) on The Late 20th Century Commercial Office. Historic England’s IHA on Public Art 1945-95 will be of relevance to the many post-modern developments incorporating public sculpture or murals.

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4.1 Contact Historic England

If you would like to contact the Listing Team in one of our regional offices, please email: customers@HistoricEngland.org.uk noting the subject of your query, or call or write to the local team at:

North Region 37 Tanner Row York YO1 6WP Tel: 01904 601948 Fax: 01904 601999

South Region 4th Floor Cannon Bridge House 25 Dowgate Hill London EC4R 2YA Tel: 020 7973 3700 Fax: 020 7973 3001

East Region Brooklands 24 Brooklands Avenue Cambridge CB2 8BU Tel: 01223 582749 Fax: 01223 582701

West Region 29 Queen Square Bristol BS1 4ND Tel: 0117 975 1308 Fax: 0117 975 0701

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5 Acknowledgements

Images© Historic EnglandAll images except those listed below

© OtherFigure 2: Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates (photographer Rollin LaFrance)

Figure 3: Courtesy of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc

Figure 4: Eredi Aldo Rossi, courtesy Fondazione Aldo Rossi

Figures 5, 7: Richard Bryant / Arcaid

Figure 6: Morley von Sternberg

Figures 8, 11: Lucy Millson-Watkins

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and we apologise in advance for any unintentional omissions, which we would be pleased to correct in any subsequent editions.

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